Suburbia is so intriguing to some people that it often seems too
complex to be captured with words--kind of like what St. Augustine
said about God. The best evidence of this is Suburban Discipline,
an anthology of 13 essays about suburbia, which alternates between
glorious insight and dismal failure. Co-editor Peter Lang offers
one of the best outings, a graspable think-piece on "The
Occulted Suburb," and Paul Mattingly does an excellent job
of wondering why academics (like himself) look down on the surburbs
so much. But these pieces are offset by some real intellectual
tongue-twisters, like one soporific bit about the Appalachian
Trail and another that argues how billboards have "up-ended
the Kantian category of passionate contemplation." (Is the
author speaking in tongues?) Suburbia is a sight to behold, it's
true, but some of these writers seem a little too awe-struck by
it all. (BdeP)

Kafka Was the Rage
by Anatole Broyard (Vintage, paper, $11)

Anatole Broyard's arch, over-literary memoir of Greenwhich Village
in the late '40s is populated, as it should be, by alienated postwar
poets and young Abstract Expressionists misbehaving in the San
Remo Bar. Mostly, though, it's populated by one Sheri, whose activities
in and out of bed are the sweaty focus of Broyard's reminiscences.
His memories are not fond--in fact, they're pretty sour. The natural
disdain he expresses for his 20-year-old self tends to spread
to Sheri and everyone else he writes about, so that rather than
sounding candid he just sounds mean. And his ornate prose style
doesn't make matters easier. It's a relic of the '40s and a reminder
of what Kerouac's lightweight, expansive sentences were designed
to purge when he began to revise literary history not too many
years after the period Broyard writes about. (JL)

Twilley
by Bruce Fleming (Turtle Point Press, paper, $13.95)

Ever had an English professor who expounded for hours on the meaning
of a passage that otherwise seemed irrelevant to the story? Twilley
seems like a book written by that professor, only there's no story,
really, just meaning in the form of hyperextended allusions, metaphors,
references and subreferences, each set off with an interruptive
bold-faced heading. At its most basic level, Twilley is
a man's journey from a department store bathroom to a lake, and
the sights along the way are exactly what most people would ignore,
such as a five-page description of a subway vent.

What makes this book interesting is the force of language that
magnifies the most insignificant details. It's like seeing pond
water under a microscope for the first time. The descriptions
are rich and poetic, but the complete lack of dialogue makes this
reading as compelling as the rambling lectures of a professor
approaching senility: enlightening at times, though mostly tedious.
(SA)

The Death of the Banker
by Ron Chernow (Vintage, paper, $12)

This engaging history of the fall of the banker and the rise of
the financier makes for a pleasant, witty read. Clocking in at
a mere 130 pages, author Ron Chernow proves that brevity is the
soul of wit as he jauntily chronicles financial gurus like the
Rothschilds, Baring Brothers, J.P. Morgan and others. His thesis
is that these men are of an extinct breed, and that their dynasties
have fractured into thousands of small investors. As he moves
his tale along, the reader is treated to interesting tidbits of
financial history: for instance, during one of the first public
stock offerings at Barings in London, some members of the huge
crowd tied their applications to stones and literally threw them
through the bank's open windows. Chernow's book shows the world
of financing in a quirky and revealing light. (AD)